Apparently Dave Girard was paid by Adobe to downplay Aperture. Dave Girard, in case you don't know, is a graphics artist known as Beige (or 3eige). He's been using Photoshop since forever and is an amazing artist. But I had read somewhere that Dave Girard has had access to pre-public-beta copies of Adobe's Lightroom (I can't find this link anymore) and that Adobe had paid him or influenced him to write a poor review of Aperture.
This morning I saw a post by Dave himself confirming he had a pre-beta copy of Lightroom.
If all this is true, I don't think I can ever trust Ars reviews again. I had some serious doubts on Ars' review methods before, but this news almost removes all doubts. I knew Dave worked closely with Adobe but going as far as trashing an app in favor of an upcoming app is disturbing.
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